


As Everything Dims

by figsoclock



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Bilbo dies AU, Gen, M/M, ORIGINAL PROMPT NOT MINE, Oneshot, a what if, inspired by some posts on tumblr, tracks LOTR as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 18:49:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1358122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figsoclock/pseuds/figsoclock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes him ten years to realize he can’t continue on like this, ten years before he gives Fili the crown, establishes Kili’s role as Fili’s captain of the guard (Dwalin steps down but remains one of the most trusted soldiers), calls for Dis to officially settle in Erebor, gives his blessing to Balin to take back Khazad Dum.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Everything Dims

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt/headcanon I saw on tumblr that I can't find now for the life of me. If anyone knows what it was please do link it and I'll put it here!  
> Originally posted on my tumblr. Cleaned it up a bit more to post here. Unbeta'd by anyone other than myself, apologies for the mistakes.

Bilbo dies, and it is what breaks Thorin’s gold-madness. He takes back Erebor, makes shaky peace with Mirkwood and Dale (but peace nonetheless), and sits on the once-coveted throne, a grim but just king.

(He tries to be. Sometimes he disappears deep into the caverns of his mind that Fili and Balin and Ori are the ones who actually run the kingdom).

It takes him ten years to realize he can’t continue on like this, ten years before he gives Fili the crown, establishes Kili’s role as Fili’s captain of the guard (Dwalin steps down but remains one of the most trusted soldiers), calls for Dis to officially settle in Erebor, gives his blessing to Balin to take back Khazad Dum.

They don’t let him leave without a fight. It’s Dis who silences their loud protests when she returns, tells them to leave him alone. She sends Thorin off with the grim line of her mouth and a fierce hug, tells him he’s always welcome in Ered Luin and in Erebor both.

He leaves.

He’s free, but he should have known freedom would taste this bitter.

-

The rings have never bothered the dwarves, though this is a difficult one, and he never dares touch it without some kind of cloth or leather as barrier.

Still it is a heavy weight in his pocket as he walks the land: aimless now for having done his duty, still lead-heavy with a different burden, vagabond once again.

-

Years and years later, scared hobbits stumble upon him in an inn, and the sight almost stops his heart because he’s never seen another hobbit after— He avoids them and their lands in his travels, doesn’t much visit Ered Luin because of that.

One of them has a face so similar to  _his_ it makes the old pain bleed and sting, like the ache has never gone away in the first place.

And then, of course, there is Gandalf.

“Thorin Oakenshield. Just the person we need.”

-

He steps foot in the Last Homely House after so many years, and is greeted with a solemn nod of welcome from the Lord of Rivendell.

He surprises Gloin and his son among others by his presence at the Council (the look on Thranduil’s heir nearly makes him chuckle).

Upon hearing the news, his first thought— the sharpest, loudest one he’s had in years — was to go back to Erebor, where his sword-arm would be needed; to defend his people once again. And who should it be but Gandalf to stop him, to show (shove) him another path to take.

He could have refused. He thinks he should have. Gandalf had no right to ask him in  _his_  name, and who is he to burden such a young hobbit with this evil? For evil it is, Thorin would know. Dwarves are mainly unaffected, hewn from stone as they are, but Thorin already bears many burdens yet he feels as though has been carrying this One for what seems like a long, long time.

(It would be one of his greatest regrets to hand the Ring over to Frodo, second only to allowing Bilbo to join the Company.

Blasted Bagginses.)

-

Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took (“Call us Merry and Pippin!”) remind him of Fili and Kili in their youth and that is perhaps what makes him kinder towards them, in his own gruff way. Samwise Gamgee, however, is scared witless of him, though he never completely understands why.

King as he was (and still is), he never has the guts to look Frodo Baggins in the eye.

-

As if seeing the lone tomb of Balin and Ori’s dry bones and dying scrawl weren’t enough, lying like forgotten relics. At least Balin had a proper burial and the scribe and his people to mourn him; but Ori… Thorin is surprised at the rage and violent grief that seizes him when he thinks about them, two loyal members of the Company —  **his**  Company — from long ago. He shouldn’t have signed it, he thinks bitterly, shouldn’t have given Balin his blessing, should have given in to old Dori’s protests.

The weight of the guilt is another addition to the ones he already carries, and he takes them up wordlessly. He picks up Ori’s book and silently vows to make sure it is returned to his brothers, and if not to them, then to Erebor’s great library. As is his right.

Then Gandalf had the gall to die by something worse, something much more evil, than a dragon. (It’s fire. It’s always fire.)

-

Lothlorien is the bastion of Elven civilization he had always heard stories about, and vaguely he has a sense of smug accomplishment at having stepped on this Elf land, if only because he can and he did. He almost wishes he could be affected by the awe he sees in the hobbits’ faces (even grudgingly on Gloin’s son), by the peace evident on Aragorn’s and Thranduil’s heir’s. But it is a mere stillness, and while Thorin will take it with what is left of his kingly grace, he cannot find the right heart anymore to be grateful. Still, it is hard not to be impressed by the Lady of the Golden Wood. And Galadriel seems to understand, as does Celeborn, though he regards especially Thorin with a cool eye.

He passes his test, he knows, only because he had failed it long ago. Galadriel lets him go with a lingering thought:  _All hope is not lost, son of Durin._

—But it _is_  lost — in the constant refrain, always, at the back of his head:

**If only he were here. If only he were here. If only he were here.**

- 

It is hard not to acknowledge Aragorn, for though perhaps a little soft by Thorin’s standards, he could be the king Thorin had wanted to be, and couldn’t.

He watches Aragorn lead the Company — hears him banter with Gimli and sing in Elvish with Thranduil’s heir, sees him listen and answer to the hobbits’ stories and questions, smoke in companionable silence with Boromir, sees him quietly lend strength to an increasingly tired-looking Frodo  — and thinks that, Isildur’s heir or no, Aragorn may just be the king this world would need.

(And in a secret, dim place in his heart, somewhere deep in the bitter jealousy, he wishes Aragorn and Arwen Evenstar the happiness he could never have.)

-

He loses Bilbo’s nephew and it’s like a slap to the face. He wasn’t able to protect him  _not again, not again, not—_

_-_

He never forgives Boromir, even to the Gondorian’s dying breath.

-

He hunts Orcs with memories of distant, similar hunts snapping at his heels. He sees the giant, walking, talking trees and absentmindedly thinks  _he would have liked this_. When he meets Gandalf the White, he snorts; Gandalf just levels him a look, with a twinkle in his eye.

-

The Lady Eowyn reminds him of Dis-- strong and good, noble and stubborn-- and for what feels like the last time, he feels a pang for home.

-

He fares better on horses than Gimli, to his faint amusement, but Gimli’s prowess in battle makes him think Gloin’s pride is happily not misplaced.

He (finally) admits that Legolas is not who he was when they first met, and that Legolas is certainly not his father.

He’s never seen such friendship between a dwarf and an elf — he only dimly remembers the stories of Khazad Dum and its Western Gate — but he cannot find it in himself to muster up the ire he would have so freely displayed long ago. To everyone’s surprise and his own, he quietly gives them his blessing, turning Gimli a brilliant red and stunning Legolas to shocked silence ( _that_ made him smirk).

-

He squares his shoulders and hefts his sword (not Orcrist, but it has served him well), as he limps to find the rest of the Company. He sends a prayer to Mahal to spare Gimli Gloin’s son , mutters another one for Mahal to watch over Erebor and Frodo and the hobbits, just as fervently as the first.

He would have added the prayer for the dead, but he has never been generous.

-

Thorin is tired. There is so much blood seeping into the soil, splattered on tiny stones, on trampled blades of grass, and he knows in his groaning bones it isn’t over.

Not yet.

He looks up at the sky and for the first time is glad that Bilbo Baggins is dead, if only so he would not have to see any of this.

-

On the twenty-fifth of March in the year 3019, Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror, once King under the Mountain falls in battle, a warrior’s death, the screeching of eagles ringing in his ears.

_Well_ , he thinks, as everything dims.  _He will like this story._


End file.
